Mundane
by JAK Kinase
Summary: A collection of FF13 drabbles. Chapter 5: Hope discovers that it's turtles, all the way down. Crack.
1. Justified Paranoia

Disclaimer: I do not, have not and (probably) will not own FFXIII anytime soon.

Title: Justified Paranoia

Rating: G

A/N: Takes place in Nautilus. Also: Sazh deserves more love.

* * *

Sazh tapped his foot.

Now now, it wasn't _irritably_. No way. Not a bit. He wasn't jealous of no chocobos. Or suspecting that they were trying to kidnap his son for various nefarious, birdly purposes. Now that was, that was just crazy talk. No no, he was here, he was calm, he was-

YOU. BIRD. NO EATING MY SON-

Oh, sorry, I wasn't yelling, yes I'll be calm, no I wasn't shouting but that bird he (she? alright, she) was clearly trying to snack on my kid! Can't you convince him (no, not the bird, my son - and stop telling me to calm down. I'm calm! I'm super calm!) to maybe step three meters that way, and put the birds under some sort of restraining device; they're clearly feral and wild and rabid and probably have a really terrible case of halitosis that's masked by the smell of poop-

...

Yes. Yes I do realize there is a chocobo chick in my hair. No, I do not see the irony. At all. Zip, nada, zippo. See this face? This is a _very_ serious face. Please stop trying to not laugh, you're making me feel silly. What _you_ do not seem to realize is that the chocobo chick is about half a pound soaking wet while these beasts are a good half-ton while dry and could-

...

...

...

DAJH? DAAAAJH! WHERE'D YOU GO?

* * *

The still nameless chocobo chick sighed.


	2. Holes in the Roof

Disclaimer: I still don't own FFX.

Title: Holes in the Roof

* * *

After Ragnorak and the fall of Cocoon, none of them had really expected to retain any of their l'cie-granted powers. The marks were gone, the world was saved, what more could they want?

Funny question, that.

In retrospect, Snow decided, they really should have checked. Or something.

Now there was a hole in his roof. It wasn't the greatest roof ever, but he'd banged it out himself and was pretty proud that it only leaked in two spots. Now it leaked in three, but the third hole was making it difficult to call it a roof anymore.

It was currently being occupied by what looked to be a snake on steroids and motor oil. If you were kind and squinted sideways it might have vaguely resembled a silver-blue mechanical dragon.

"Serah?" He asked, a little hesitantly. "There's a hole-"

"I _know_," Serah snapped, apparently a little exasperated. Actually, a lot exasperated.

"Oh, good." Snow muttered, still staring at the snake. "I wanted to be sure."

"I think his name is Leviathan." Serah continued, as if it wasn't a forty-foot mechanical snake poking a hole through their roof.

But she was his wife and had been antsy about something lately and he could heroically muster up enough willpower to continue this conversation as if it weren't straight out of the twilight zone. Plus, Light had – in a very sisterly way – told him that if he made her cry again she'd cut off his balls. He rather liked his balls. Intact, even.

"You can't keep him," he blurted out.

"What?"

"Leviathan. Um. Pet. Snake. Thing." He gestured lamely at it.

"It's not a pet. I didn't find it on the ground somewhere and feed it cookies! It's that… like your naked motorcycle girls."

People had a thing against his Eidolons. Snow hadn't the faintest clue why.

"They weren't naked…" then his brain caught up with the rest of him and he was forced to re-examine Leviathan. "Wait, really? Did you already defeat-"

"No."

"Ah." Snow stared somewhat dubiously at it. No one else's Eidolon came close to matching it in sheer size. Then again, Serah did like them big. He gave one of his patented grins. "Need a hand?"

Serah rolled her eyes and told him to go call Light.

So he charged at it, yelling Banzai-

And when he woke up, twelve hours later, Light added 'acting suicidal' to the list of unacceptable behavior that would get his balls chopped off.

He nodded meekly.

* * *

Author's notes: Snow is such a whipped puppy. And someone should write a fic where Dajh and Serah are the only ones to retain their l'Cie powers and go off and save the world. Or tame chocobos and _then_ save the world. Or something.

To Lady Midday and KeyLimeChibi, thanks for reviewing!


	3. Bad Dreams

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue, yadda yadda.

Author's notes: Right, so I put it under humor _and_ drama. This is the drama part. S'not funny. Or not supposed to be. Mobius14, thanks for reviewing!

* * *

She dreamed they were having a falling out.

Serah was trying desperately hard not to cry. Or yell. Her too dark, imperfectly applied eyeliner was dripping. She had a leather jacket from Eden knew where. Mini-skirt. Was she thirteen? Fourteen? Lightning couldn't tell. It didn't matter. The two of them stood in the entry of their little apartment, back when they'd lived in Palumpolum.

Back before fal'cie, l'cie or the train to nowhereland.

Serah was trying to talk to her.

Serah had always been trying to talk to her.

"Claire-"

"Don't you _dare_ call me that." She heard herself say. She was dressed in her PJs. Bunny slippers. Her tone was harsh, measured and angry. She'd always been angry back then. She'd wished she could say it'd been the stress.

Serah tried again. Her eyes were very pink. Her cheeks were flushed. "Sis-"

"Shut up."

"Light-"

Sigh. "Serah. Shut up. And listen."

Ah. One of those dreams. Where she lectured.

Serah never talked back.

Lightning had never understood why.

"You're not a kid anymore," she heard herself say. "You wanted me to acknowledge that. I've acknowledged that. You can go where you want, do what you want, do it with who you want-" Serah's cheeks flamed red and she was openly sobbing now, "and break curfew whenever the hell you want. Go ahead."

"_Claire_-"

"I'm going to bed. You're going to bed. Tomorrow I'm leaving."

Serah continued to cry.

"And then you'll be free to mess up your life however you want. Won't that be lovely?"

Light woke up gasping, cold sweat beading at her forehead. Somewhere in the darkness, a chocobo was snoring. Her hand found the knife she'd received for a birthday present. Her hand curled around it.

* * *

_I'm coming for you, Serah._


	4. Miniskirts

Miniskirt Legends

Disclaimer: Not mine, Squeenix owns, yadda yadda.

Author's Notes: This was supposed to be a Hope or Vanille perspective but all the best laid plans... A thank you for Mobius14 and Lady Midday who were kind enough to review again, and a thank you to JKW351 and TeGR who reviewed this drabble collection for the first time.

* * *

"So," Sazh said, still munching on roasted flan as he stoked the fire, "how come Guardian Corps wears miniskirts these days?"

Lightning spat the water she was drinking out of her nose.

"Ex_cuse_ me?"

The pilot gestured vaguely towards Lightning's bare legs before taking another bite. "It doesn't seem practical is all I'm saying."

Hope, traitor that he was, nodded his head in slow agreement.

Vanille, who, really wasn't in any position to be making such comments chose to pipe in: "It's true. Not warm enough by half." When four pairs of eyes chose to swivel on _her_ legs she added, defensively: "fur's _warm_."

"You mean Fang's war- owch owch owch, Fang, _fingers do not bend like that_."

"It's regulation length." Light mumbled, ignoring Snow's plight.

"I dunno. It looks the same size as Vanille's," Hope pointed out helpfully.

"Hey!"

"Well it is, love."

"But – he doesn't have to say it like it's a _disease_ or something."

Snow was still doubled over in pain and thus could only contribute little gasps and squeaky noises to the conversation.

"And you have your fur skirt, and Lightning has her cape-thing," Sazh said, mollifying. "I was just curious. Doesn't seem like standard gear."

Like afro-dwelling chocobos.

Lightning cleared her throat. "Actually, it is."

"… wait, seriously?"

"Really?"

"Faaaaaang. _Please_."

Snow might have been openly sobbing. Lightning continued to ignore him.

"Well… there's a legend that the founder of the Guardian Corps was a man by the name of Colonel Mustang." She toyed with her Blaze Edge. Sazh shifted backwards imperceptibly. "After the first Ragnorak he decided that it would be necessary to split the military in two so that one side could prepare for the eventual invasion and the other to protect home."

How to continue.

"You have to understand that Cocoon at the time was under a lot of stress-"

"Hey! We didn't know! We thought you were going to invade Gran Pulse!"

"Love, Light's trying to tell a story."

"Oooooh. I'll be quiet."

"Right. So Cocoon was under a lot of stress. People were scared and panicked and things were getting pretty bad. Colonel Mustang got the Guardian Corps to do a lot of things to help people: hunting wild beasts, finding lost pets, repairing damaged infrastructure, helping little old ladies cross the street..."

"Sazh, have you ever seen a GC help a little old lady cross the street?"

"Shush."

"And he, uh, for morale purposes, ordained that women in the Guardian Corps would-" at this point, Lightning's voice was getting softer and softer requiring all interested parties to learn forward to hear, "-wear tiny miniskirts."

There was a moment of silence as everyone contemplated how it was possible that such an exploitative, sexist, chauvinistic pig of a man ever managed to make it to the top of the military.

"Guys." Snow sobbed. "_Please_. Tell Fang to _stop._"

* * *

Further A/N: Cameo by Colonel Mustang of FMA. I don't own him either. Arakawa-sensei does.


	5. Turtle Troubles

Disclaimer: Squeenix owns FF13.

Author's Notes: Oh wow, a thank you to all reviewers! I really do appreciate it. JKW351, Mobius14, Keylime Chibi, TeGR thanks for reviewing again; Alpha T. Sigma and Oerba Yun Fang thanks for reviewing for the first time! If you have any requests or prompts at all, send me a PM or something. :3

* * *

Hope stared up.

And up. And up. And up.

That was one _big_ turtle.

"Vanille," he asked, licking his lips, "why are we doing this again?"

"Because it's fun?"

Hope laughed nervously. Fang and Vanille both gave him curious, questioning looks.

Call him crazy, but Hope did not find hunting several hundred-ton animals that could _accidentally_ step on him and break every bone in his body 'fun.' But that was just him. Maybe.

Oh Eden he was going to die.

"Is it too late for me to hang out with Sazh?"

Sazh was out hunting flan. So they'd have stuff to eat. That was boring. That was practical. That was also very safe.

Well, mostly safe.

"Oh shape up," Fang said, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulders which nearly catapulted Hope off his feet, "you'll get used to it in no time!"

Personally, he wasn't so sure. But he wasn't about to tell _Fang_ that.

"So, um, what's the plan?"

Fang beamed at him. "That's the spirit! Well, we're – you and me – going to distract it. Vanille will do her mojo magic and take it out. It'll be done in a jiffy, you'll see."

"In a jiffy!" Vanille repeated, giggling.

For the record?

They lied.

So when they trudged back to camp, richer by several orders of magnitude, it was Lightning, of all people, that leaped up, appalled. "What happened to you?"

She said the all-encompassing 'you' but Hope knew she had meant him. Sazh looked up, sighed in that 'oh geez, you crazy kids' way only someone safely passed their thirties can manage and went back to roasting flan.

Snow whistled. Traitor.

"I got stepped on," he said stiffly.

While Phoenix downs could restore many things, they had to have been recently alive. Material possessions, weapons, money and so on didn't fit that criteria.

Neither did his clothes.

With great dignity, Hope walked up to the fire in his leafy green underwear and sat down.

"Flan," he demanded holding out a hand.

* * *

_Hope? Umm. Your butt's on fire._


End file.
